When everything turns to black
by obedientlittlevictor
Summary: You don't know where to go, you need something to justify your soul. The team is taunted when their family gets killed off one by one. No one knows who is next.
1. Chapter 1

The first sign is Reid's mother dying. It turns out to be arsenic poisoning, but by the time Reid flies to Vegas and sees the white spots of leukonychia striata on Diane's nails, her convulsions are so severe that death is just around the corner.

She dies on a sunny Tuesday morning with her beloved only son holding her hand.

The team takes the rest of the week off to be with Reid, who is more full of seething rage than grief. More concerned with finding who did this than with losing his mother. The sad thing is, they all know what that feeling.

Section Chief Cruz tells them to handle it as a backburner case and to come back to work. Their focus couldn't be on solving Diane's murder, no matter how much they want to. It's not serial or terrorist; it's an isolated incident. None of them agree with Cruz's directive, but they take on other cases. There's no deficit of fucked up crimes.

The second doesn't hit them all like Diane Reid's death, since no one but Rossi and Hotch knew Gideon's son Stephen. He dies in a drive-by shooting in an affluent neighborhood in Rhode Island. There are no reported robberies or other crimes in the prior or following weeks. The local police don't have the manpower or the means to investigate the crime to the extent that Stephen Gideon deserves, so Rossi and Hotch add that case to the pile on their desks to look at when they don't go home at night.

Agent Grant Anderson has never been a major part of the team, but he has been a constant and willing presence for any assignments handed to him. He is killed in a routine training exercise when he falls off the climbing wall and breaks his neck. No one knows why he was at the training course at 5:00 in the morning, but investigators chalk it up to wanting additional practice. The team attends his funeral, three too many.

It's less suspicious when Detective Will LaMontagne dies on the job, but it still devastates the team to the core. Will is one of their own. His death is the fourth surrounding their team in less than a month. JJ is too grief-stricken to realize the connection right away, but the team meets in the round table room the day after Will's funeral anyway. Garcia is charged with watching little Henry, since JJ can barely keep her eyes open and her legs standing.

"This isn't a coincidence," Hotch greets them, eyes hovering over JJ's cowering form tucked into Emily's side. He meets Emily's defiant eyes and summons the strength to continue. "Four in a month. It all seems too connected to us, and–."

"We all fucking know what it is, Hotch," JJ croaks and it's the first she's spoken since she let out the endless shriek over the phone when Will's police captain called and uttered the words _killed in action_. The sound coming from her mouth now almost doesn't seem human.

Emily brushes JJ's hair back from her face and adjusts her arm tighter around her. JJ's usually calm voice shakes and the team is shocked at her abnormally vulgar language. "Now how the fuck are we going to find that son of a bitch who took away my baby's father."

When they think about it later, it would be funny, almost, in a morbid sort of way, because Cruz comes in the room right at that moment and tries to call Morgan out of the room.

"If you have something to say to me," Morgan takes a breath and his hands tremble, because there's no way it can be happening to him, "you can say it to everyone."

Fran Morgan is shot and killed in what Chicago PD believe to be gang-related turf war. It _is_ the South Side, after all. Morgan punches a hole in the wall before Rossi and Hotch throw him to the ground. No one can say with finality whose screams are loudest.

The entire situation is a nightmare and there is nothing they can do about it. For all their expertise and resources, they can't do shit because they don't even know where to start.

"We're taking personal time," Hotch tells Cruz. It's not a request; it's a demand, an order. Cruz makes to protest, but he's already thought through his reasoning. "Reid, JJ, and Morgan all have bereavement leave. Prentiss, Rossi, and I have more vacation days than we know what to do with. The other BAU teams can handle our cases. Besides, it's officially serial, and we are the only connecting link."

Cruz can't make a viable argument against that. "You know damn well that I can't authorize your team investigating this case."

Hotch has been playing this bureaucratic bullshit game for long enough to read between the lines. The team doesn't have a free pass, by any means, but they've been given just enough leeway to investigate this on their own.

"The team's vacation starts tomorrow," Hotch says, slowly, carefully, so Cruz knows that he knows what they're playing at.

"I think your tech analyst Penelope Garcia may deserve some time off as well," Cruz states solemnly. He cocks his head at Hotch's fiery glare. "I can't give you resources."

"I know. We have all we need _for our vacation_. The paperwork is being drafted as we speak."

"Well, you sure don't waste any time getting approval," Cruz snorts a half-chuckle. He may be the boss, but he knows what it feels like to be powerless against his enemies. "Stay safe. And stay under the radar."

"Yes, sir."

* * *

 **A/N: Title is Black by Kari Kimmel.**


	2. Chapter 2

It is almost too easy to get Emily to put her career at Interpol on hold and stay in Washington, D.C. Hotch feels disgusted with himself when he thinks, _If all it I had to do to get her to stay is kill off our family_ , even though he cuts off his thoughts before they get too detailed. He wanted her to stay after the Doyle fiasco, thought about begging her to stay, but it's always been her life. He let her walk away.

Emily may have walked away, but in no way did she abandon them. She came back when JJ was captured, and she's back now. She has no intention of leaving until they find who is doing this to them; she makes that abundantly clear when she demands Cruz formally bring her on as an Interpol consultant.

It's the only way that the team will be even remotely official and professional in their conduct, but if a Senator hearing would be brought down on them again, like it had been after the Doyle mission, there's not a good chance that they would all be able to keep their jobs. It's a price they're all willing to pay.

"Cruz, you owe me from Askari and we both know it. I'm cashing in on that favor," she states, bold and brazen with her words and her posture. She hates to pull that card, but it's true. She is directly responsible for his and JJ's rescue last year.

Cruz rubs his temples and lets out a deep sigh. " _Officially_ , the rest of the team is on vacation. You are not to discuss the case facts with them."

Emily raises her chin and meets his eyes defiantly, then lets a smirk grace her face. Hotch isn't the only one who can play the bureaucratic game, and she's been playing politics for far longer to boot. "Of course, sir."

"You report to me," Cruz relents. "I'll file the paperwork tonight. Now get out of here. Take care of your team."

And she will. The rest of the team is still in the roundtable room, but she goes straight for Hotch's office. He keeps a bottle of 20 year old scotch whisky in the bottom drawer of his desk, a gift from Rossi after he released another book last year. She dives straight for it without greeting him and is tempted to drink straight from the bottle.

"So should we analyze everyone's mental state first or–" Hotch starts in his attempt at nonchalance.

"Yes," she cuts off and pours two fingers of whisky in a glass and tosses it back. The scotch burns on the way down, but she pours another for herself and one for him too. "You first. You're pissed that it took this much to bring me back."

He shouldn't be surprised at how perceptive she is; she was one of the best profilers he ever worked with once upon a time. Contrary to nearly every agent's belief, they were never lovers; the timing never worked out. She's still more intuitive than Haley ever was.

"I can't say you're wrong. I didn't want you to leave, but I understood your reasoning," he says, and it's true. He does understand. He hates it, but he understands. "But that has nothing to do with what is happening and how we are going to solve it."

Emily snorts into her glass before taking a more tempered sip from her glass. Her face feels warm and she tries to remember the last time she ate a real meal. As if reading her mind, Hotch hands her an apple and knocks back his own shot of whisky.

"Is this my fault, Hotch?"

"In what _fucking_ way could this possibly be your fault, Prentiss?" He uses her last name as if they were still coworkers, some semblance of normalcy into a situation that is far from normal. He hates how small her voice sounds, so fragile and uncertain, so unlike the usual Emily Prentiss.

"I don't know," she admits. "I just can't stop thinking that if I had been here, I could somehow have stopped this. It's entirely illogical, because we can't predict what psychos will pop up when, but still."

Emily trails off but he knows what she's trying to say. He feels the same way sometimes, an underlying urge to protect the rest of the team from anything and everything that could hurt. Their instincts have always been on par; it's why they worked so well together.

Hotch stands from his chair and uses his height to his advantage. She's no longer his subordinate, hell, she doesn't even work for the same agency as him anymore, so he feels no pressure to keep from touching her. He grips her shoulders firmly and makes sure she is looking at him.

"This isn't anyone's fault besides the son of a bitch who's doing this. And when we get our hands on him, we are going to tear 'im apart," Hotch murmurs solidly, confidently.

He isn't sure what brings a slight smile to Emily's face: his words or the almost negligible backwoods Virginia accent that appears in the rarest of times and somehow almost always with her. It doesn't matter, though, because her dark eyes are blazing with her signature fire and it warms his heart faster than the whisky.

"Derek is furious, rage beyond any comparison, and we'll have to keep him on track. He's going to be a flight risk, but he'll always come back. Reid hasn't completely retreated inside himself, but that's the path he's on. JJ is too far gone right now and frankly the only thing keeping her alive is Henry," Emily starts, answering his earlier comment about the mental states of the team. "Garcia is going to do everything in her power to bring this guy down. Rossi is already on a war path that's been years in the making because he remembers the most vividly what it was like to lose Strauss. How am I doing?"

"Good to know you haven't lost your profiling edge," Hotch nods in approval. "And you? Emily, you will move mountains and part seas in your determination to keep this team safe. You have nothing to make up for, no penance to clear, no score to settle. You are family to everyone here, and no debts are owed. Remember that. But from now on, we don't profile each other."

Emily squeezes his hand before turning to walk to the roundtable room and the waiting team.

"Cruz gave me the go-ahead. I'm officially the BAU's Interpol Liason," Emily states with a self-satisfied nod. "As you all know, I can share none of the information I learn from this case with you. But also as you all know, you are my family and you come first. We will find this psycho and we will tear him apart."


End file.
